I have a 95' Talon, currently lowered on dropzone 2" lowering springs on stock struts, 215/45-17s. I had the same setup on my eclipse. On the eclipse, my tires would last about a year to a year and a half. Bought some lowering springs from a guy already assembled on stock struts and started eating rear tires every 6 months on the talon. When I switched the dropzones to the talon, it's the same life on the tires, around 6 months.

I've noticed that I have a wierd clunk noise coming from the rear driver side on every bump. Car doesn't bottom out unless I hit one of virginia's many potholes. It's kind of faint, but even cruising down the interstate I can still hear it. I tried bouncing the back to see where the noise was coming from and it looks/ sounds like the upper strut cushion.

So, question is, would that cause my alignment to be that far off. I know my camber is really, really... really bad to begin with, which I plan on doing the rear camber mod to correct some of that, but I've been putting it off since that's my daily driver due to a clogged heater core on the turbo, and my free time is very limited.

To sum it all up, brand new rear driver tire is lasting around 3-4 months, rear passenger around 6 months, and the front two tires, around a year. I have to do the camber mod, but what else can I check that could make a faint clunk noise and cause me to eat tires more than twice as fast. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Check your bushings. Rubber deteriorates causing poor suspension geometry. How long have you been replacing tires at this rate? You could saved yourself a lot of money if you had an alignement long ago. Get a camber kit already! They are cheap. You could have purchased many camber kits by now with the money in tires.

Any time suspension geometry is altered (e.g. lowered vehicle) the alignment must be corrected.

Well, I've had two alignments already. I had one before I changed the suspension, and after. They just said it was so far off in the back that they couldn't correct it.

Checked all of my bushings, that's what I originally thought it was, but they all look to be fine. there's no play in them weighted or unweighted.

I'll be doing the camber mod soon hopefully since I just had a blowout last night and had to throw the factory tires back on. Take it and see if they will align it again for free since it's been a short time from the last one.

Honestly, I'm thinking it may be a bad spring. Now every little change in height on that corner is making a sort of spring squeak noise. Even when pushing down on the rear slightly it still makes that noise and when it rebounds it makes a "clunk" noise from the top of the strut.

Originally posted by eclipserstturbo
Bought some lowering springs from a guy already assembled on stock struts and started eating rear tires every 6 months on the talon. When I switched the dropzones to the talon, it's the same life on the tires, around 6 months.

Originally posted by eclipserstturbo
They just said it was so far off in the back that they couldn't correct it.

There is your answer there. There are different parts of an alignment. Camber? Toe? If your toe is too far off to correct, you have physical damage to a control arm or subframe. Camber is typically corrected by a camber correction kit.